The Toronto Maple Leafs are clearly Canada’s best team, and, playoff success aside, they are likely the NHL’s best team too.
At worst, you can say that the Toronto Maple Leafs are one of three teams, along with Tampa and Colorado who makes up the current elite class of the NHL.
Well, other people will say worse, but that’s the worst you could say if you were well informed, unbiased and hellbent on speaking the truth.
We aren’t here today to regale the haterinos with bluster and bravado, no sir, we come today to answer just one simple question:
Are the Toronto Maple Leafs still way better than the Ottawa Senators?
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Ottawa Senators
As much as I think it’s cute the Senators and their fans now think they are a contender, they are not.
However, the NHL is a league in which bad teams regularly find success and good teams don’t. Look no further than than the previous versions of this Leafs team – the 2010s San Jose Sharks and Canucks.
They were great teams who deserved more than they got, and what they got is the same amount of success as the 2007 Sens and the 2021 Canadiens – two crap teams who got mega-lucky.
Therefore, the Senators could end up winning the Stanley Cup next year – who knows?
The point is, their roster is not good enough to compete with the roster the Leafs are icing.
The Senators were 26th last year, the Leafs were 4th.
The two teams were separated by 42 points in the standings.
Just to make the Wild Card, the Senators will need a 27 point improvement, which is a huge ask.
Sure, their young players will take steps, and they will also now have Debrincat and Giroux and Mattheu Joseph.
OK so let’s say they all have MVP seasons and the Senators win an extra 15 games (an MVP season is roughly worth five wins). That assumes the rest of their roster stays the same, and since it’s a major over exaggeration of all three players, it also makes up for any gains Stutzle et al might make).
So a best case scenario might see them with another 30 points over last year, and allow them to sneak into a wild card spot.
They would still need the Toronto Maple Leafs to finish 15 points worse (unlikely since they are returning the same team, and already had the 27th worst goalies in the league).
So in an absolute best-case scenario, in which the Senators brought in 3 x Hart Trophy candidates to their team over the summer, and in which the Leafs somehow totally fall off, the two teams could both compete for a wild card birth.
And they are supposed to do that with the worst blue-line in hockey and goalies who are, at best, roughly equal to the Leafs goalies (which means they could be anywhere from amazing to horrible).
It isn’t happening. The Ottawa Senators team is not really that much improved, and no one is really taking about the elephant in the room which is going to affect that locker room until answers come out.
I always cheer for Ottawa as my second-favorite team. But it’s ridiculous to think a team that has only one defenseman who could make the Toronto Maple Leafs is a real playoff team, let alone a contender.